If you want to make a change, start with yourself

Classical music can be prejudicially described as a conservative form of art performed only in concert halls for dressed up senior citizens, wealthy bourgeois and musicians themselves. But reality is different. There are way more people who like and appreciate classical music. In fact, classical music is rather isolated from the rest of the world and is not part of peoples’ everyday life like other music genres which you can hear in cafes, restaurants, on the radio, clubs, etc. It is hard to get access to classical music and especially to hear it live.

I’m Justina Auskelyte, a Lithuanian violinist living in Sweden. My project ‘Violinist on a Bike’ was born with the idea of making live classical music present and more relevant in people’s everyday lives while taking a caring stance on environment and supporting sustainable mobility.

‘Violinist on a Bike’ takes top class music performances from concert halls and brings them outside to the people in cities, towns, villages and remote countryside. Cycling is a fluid, reliable, affordable, healthy and environmentally friendly means of transport. At the same time, a bike is ideal for reaching places that are difficult to access by another means of transport. Therefore, a bike can bring me and my music performances to basically every possible imaginable place, enabling me to create intimate face to face musical experiences with everyone around me.

From the very first day of the project I could see that the interest and appreciation of classical music is way greater than one would think. People who just would have never listened to the violin music before - kids, young couples, shop owners, bartenders, tourists and even so called “gangsters” of the town - stop for a moment and with curiosity observe the performance.

‘Violinist on a Bike’ is a new way of bringing live classical music closer to the people in their everyday life. It brakes the stereotypes about classical music as a boring and old fashioned form of art, introduces it to a broader audience and eliminates the barriers between the performer and the listener. And in order to do all this I have decided to GO GREEN! ;)

Justina Auskelyte moved to Sweden for love. Marriage, residency permit, permanent job, and creative projects - all this happened in less than a year. Violinist on a Bike is her most recent idea and she's surprised how quickly the word spread. A week into the project, she met people who were already informed about it.

An Interview with Lithuanian Violinist Justina Auskelyte (www.auskelyte.com) who is going around on a bike in her new hometown of Malmö playing the music of Bach, Paganini and others in coffee shops, barber shops, parks etc. Hear all about Justina's project. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://anchor.fm/hello-stage/support